Krentz String Works is proud to partner with Neo-Ebene Sarl in Lausanne, Switzerland to bring this important product to the North American market. After several years of work, the team at Neo-Ebene developed Corene, a beautiful, non-toxic, and stable material to replace premium grade ebony which has become very scarce. They then worked with several of the world’s top luthiers and fingerboard geometry experts to produce fingerboards that can be used without further adjustments, even consulting the well-regarded fingerboards of the great Hill workshop from the turn of the 20th century.

The material used for the manufacture of Corene™ offers the following specificities:

• A look, feel and finish virtually indistinguishable from ebony in its color and structure
• Resistance to acidity found in hand and fingers perspiration, reducing the need to correct the surface of the fingerboard
• Excellent dimensional stability, not affected by humidity and temperature changes
• Mechanical characteristic comparable to ebony, providing strength and the sensation of uniform elasticity, especially in higher finger positions
• Surface hardness and mass volume equivalent to ebony, qualities essential for a sharp and clear tone

Corene™ fingerboards can be worked as ebony; the material is completely homogeneous which makes it very pleasant to work with traditional tools and traditional violin making methods.

Corene™ fingerboards are designed in Switzerland, machined with an accuracy of +/- 0.1 mm and supplied with all the finely visible surfaces, black ebony, uniform and revealing a slightly veined structure.